A mother in the northern Manitoba town of Leaf Rapids has pulled her son from the local school system out of frustration with what she said is a lack of teachers, educational assistants and other resources at the Frontier School Division.

Rosemarie Grusska is now home-schooling her son, who was in Grade 7. He could not learn in class at the Leaf Rapids Education Centre while teachers were busy dealing with too many problem students, she said Monday.

Grusska, a former school committee chair, is also starting a petition around town calling for more resources at the school division.

"Students are dropping below their grade levels," she said.

"They're two grade levels below their peers in the province and, you know, we haven't been able to bring those numbers up because we just don't have the resources to fully work with the children."

The town of Leaf Rapids, which has a population of about 1,500, is located 200 kilometres northwest of Thompson and 975 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

Nearly 180 kids from kindergarten to Grade 12 attend the school in Leaf Rapids Education Centre, with some classrooms housing combined grades.

In her four years as school committee chair, Grusska said, she lobbied for more teachers and teaching assistants, one-on-one support for students with fetal alcohol syndrome and attention deficit disorder, and help in supervising detentions.

She resigned as chair in December out of frustration because she said the division has only provided short-term solutions.

"What we need to identify is where the underlying problems are and in which classrooms, and I think we need to perhaps split these classrooms," she said.

But Frontier superintendent Gordon Shead said the division has already committed plenty of resources to the Leaf Rapids school on a limited budget.

"To expect that all of the kids in Grade 7, for example, are all going to be at the Grade 7 level is whistling in the wind," he said. "It isn't the reality of any school in this province."

Shead said the division is planning a community meeting in Leaf Rapids to discuss the school's problems.